Where the location of manufacture is close to the place of sale, it is common practice to ship pieces of furniture in their fully assembled state, such that the piece of furniture is ready to be displayed or used by the purchaser. Shipping fully assembled furniture requires a large volume of space and difficulties in packaging. The large volume of space and, consequently, high numbers of shipping containers translate to expensive shipping costs, especially over long distances. Therefore, it is advantageous to be able to ship furniture in an unassembled state for assembly at another location, preferably nearer the furniture product's final destination. For example, due to lower labor and material costs, increasingly, furniture may be manufactured overseas and shipped via containers from abroad. Unassembled furniture is more compact and can be shipped more efficiently and cost-effectively in an unassembled state. Shipping furniture in the unassembled state provides cost reduction, for example, shipping more components in a given amount of space with the ability to ultimately ship more total complete pieces of furniture. However, once the unassembled furniture reaches its final destination, it must be reassembled for sale to the consumer. Hence, it is beneficial if the cost of assembling the furniture product is cost-effective when compared to the costs of shipping assembled furniture or furniture sub-assemblies.
Articles of furniture, for example, sofas and chairs often include an exposed base assembly commonly called a showood base. The base assembly typically comprises four rail members, four corner members, four leg members, as well as the attendant hardware to secure the various base pieces to one another to form the base assembly. Generally, non-hardware components are manufactured from wood. An assembled base, when shipped, occupies a greater volume and requires greater space and packaging than the base components in an unassembled state. Therefore, it is advantageous from an overall shipping cost perspective, to ship the base components in an unassembled state. However, the cost of assembling the furniture base at its final destination, where labor cost may be high, should be weighed against the benefits of reduced shipping costs. Therefore, it would be generally advantageous if the furniture base can be easily and efficiently assembled at its final destination.
Because the various exposed components of showood bases are formed of wood, often the wood finish results in unacceptably differing appearances from component to component. This difference in finish necessitates gathering matching sets of components before assembly of the showood base. The mismatching of finished pieces is particularly a problem with the front rail and corner blocks because the front aspect of the showood base is generally the aspect on view. The problem of difference in finish of components of the showood base can also exist with injection-molded pieces, as the color of the pieces can vary from lot to lot. It would be desirable to eliminate or minimize the mismatching of base assembly pieces.
Furniture product components, for example, sofa showood bases and chair showood bases, include joints where rail members of the base meet and are joined with the corner block members of the base. Typically, the rail members are arranged at an angle of approximately 90° at the corner block member and are interconnected. Each furniture leg member is also generally connected to a corner block member. Conventional furniture corner joints have been known to be made by utilizing a dovetail connection, by dowel or mortise and tenon connection, or by screwing or bolting the adjacent components together. Dovetail joints generally require highly skilled-craftsman and typically the joints are glued, resulting in high labor costs and time of manufacture. Dowel connections, or joints that are screwed together may produce comparatively unstable furniture joints and joint gaps. Mortise and tenon joints are also known, however, skilled workers are generally needed to assemble the furniture without creating joint gaps, and often jigs or fixtures are needed to hold the component pieces during the assembly process.
A known type of joint for a furniture base corner joint includes a pair of rails members, a leg member and a corner block member to which the two rail members and the leg member are affixed. The two rail members can be fastened to the corner block member via fasteners, such as screws, nails, or bolts, and the leg member is fastened to the underside of the corner block member via fasteners such as screws, nails, or bolts. Further, to strengthen the corner joint, a bracket straddling the corner joint may be affixed on the interior of the joint. The bracket can be affixed to the corner block member and the two neighboring rail members connected to the corner block member, via fasteners such as screws or bolts. This construction involves a number of components, is time consuming, and may, nevertheless, lead to gaps at the intersection of the rail members and the corner block member. Examples of this type of construction are shown in FIGS. 19 and 20.
Despite the various methods available for furniture construction and, in particular, sofa and chair base construction, there remains a demand for an efficient and cost effective system of constructing a base assembly with a minimal number of component parts and minimal potential for gap formation at the intersection of the rail member and corner block member components.